News and views of Constance Cumbey concerning "Radical Middle", New Age Movement, Communitarianism, "planetary humanism," "global governance," European Union, Javier Solana, Jeremy Rifkin, "New Age Politics," law in the USA, combined with life in general -- sometimes humorous, sometimes not!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Just when you thought things couldn't get much worse, now they have. The openly lesbian mayor of Houston, Texas, Anise Parker, has issued a subpoena demanding that local pastors turn over their sermons to her. This is nothing short but an abuse of power -- her power as mayor, the power to use the subpoena process system -- not to mention the clear and unambiguous provisions of the United States Constitution relating to cherished freedoms of speech and religion.

May I recommend the book "Confessions of an unlikely convert" by Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian and Queer Studies lecturer who found Christ and let him change her; she is now married. It is a remarkable testimony.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican is watering down a ground-breaking overture to gays - but only if they speak English.

After a draft report by bishops debating family issues came under criticism from many conservative English-speaking bishops, the Vatican released a new English translation on Thursday.

A section initially entitled "Welcoming homosexuals" is now "Providing for homosexual persons," and the tone of the text is significantly colder.

The initial English version - released Monday along with the original - accurately reflected the Italian version in both letter and spirit, and contained a remarkable tone of acceptance to gays. The other translations were similarly faithful to the Italian and didn't deviate in tone.

Conservatives were outraged, and the English was changed.

The first English version asked if the church was capable of "welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities." The new version asks if the church is "capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing ... them ... a place of fellowship in our communities."

The first version said homosexual unions can often constitute a "precious support in the life of the partners." The new one says gay unions often constitute "valuable support in the life of these persons."

Other changes were made in other sections of the text, but without significantly altering the meaning or tone.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said English-speaking bishops had requested the changes on the grounds that the first translation was hasty and error-ridden.

When Lombardi was shown how significantly the meaning had changed, he pledged to investigate and didn't rule out a third version.

Lombardi stressed that the original Italian remains the official text, and noted that the draft is being revised top-to-bottom for a final report which will go to a vote among bishops on Saturday.

If two-thirds approve it, the report will form the basis of discussions in dioceses around the world before another meeting of bishops next year, and ultimately a teaching document by Pope Francis.

Based on the complaints to the original text and the number of amendments proposed Thursday, the drafting committee appointed by the pope has its work cut out for it if it wants to get a two-thirds majority.

The Vatican released summaries of the amendments from the 10 working groups that have been negotiating all week. They are near-unanimous in insisting that church doctrine on family life be more fully asserted and explained - that marriage is between a man and woman, open to children - and that faithful Catholic families should be held up as models and encouraged rather than focus on family problems and "irregular" unions.

The English-speaking working groups were among the most critical. The one headed by Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of South Africa complained about the translation of the draft report and used the new "providing for" homosexuals language of the revised English translation, suggesting that he or someone in his group might have requested the change.

On Thursday, Francis added Napier, as well as an Australian bishop, to the drafting committee that will compose the final document. It was widely noticed that Francis' initial appointees were largely progressives whom he named after conservatives were elected to head the working groups proposing the amendments.

African bishops, who are among the most conservative on family issues, were not included in his initial picks.

Christians across the nation are mobilizing to defend a group of Houston pastors who were ordered by the city to turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity issues or Houston mayor. Their message is simple – Don’t Mess with Texas Preachers.

Dave Welch, the executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, is one of the five ministers who received a subpoena. He said he will not be intimidated by Annise Parker, who is the city's first openly lesbian mayor, nor will he comply with the city’s demands.

“My answer to that is – bring it on,” he said.

Houston’s city attorney issued the subpoenas in a response to a lawsuit filed related to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (H.E.R.O.), the city's new non-discrimination ordinance, also known as the “Bathroom Bill.”

The new law, which has yet to take effect, would (among other things) allow men who identify as women to use the restrooms of their choice – and vice versa. Opponents launched a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot.

However, the city threw out the petitions claiming there were not enough legitimate signatures. Opponents then filed a lawsuit – which led the city to issue the subpoenas.

Ironically, none of the five subpoenaed pastors are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Welch told me pastors across the Lone Star State are mobilizing and in the very near future they plan to hold a “Don’t Mess with Texas Pulpit Sunday” event.

“We are dealing with bullies used to getting away with abuse of power,” Welch said. “We called their bluff on this.”

But City Attorney David Feldman told me that doesn’t matter. He said in an interview Tuesday that the five pastors were actively involved in leading the fight against the Bathroom Bill and launching the petition drive.

“They are not party plaintiffs but they certainly appeared before council repeatedly regarding the ordinance and the petition,” Feldman told me.

The city attorney defended the decision to issue the subpoenas.

“This petition was organized at the churches,” he said. “That’s where the organizing drive took place. That’s where rallies were held. That’s where signing parties were held.”

Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission told me the city needs to mind its own business.

“The government has absolutely no reason to bully congregations who are speaking out about what they believe,” he said. “It’s none of the government’s business.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm specializing in religious cases, is representing the pastors. They accused City Hall of going on a fishing expedition.

“City council members are supposed to be public servants, not ‘Big Brother’ overlords who will tolerate no dissent or challenge,” ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. “This is designed to intimidate pastors.

Attorney Feldman denied that was the case.

“I’m just doing my job,” he said. “I don’t have any issues with these pastors. What I’m doing is defending a lawsuit that was brought against us.”

Moore said he could not believe the city had taken such drastic steps.

“It didn’t sound like something that would happen in America,” he told me. “It is shocking in its audacity and it is buffoonish in its strategy. I can’t imagine who in City Hall thought this was a good idea.”

And that brings us back to Attorney Feldman – who dutifully took full responsibility and said the mayor had absolutely nothing to do with the subpoenas. He said she was never informed.

So at what point was Mayor Parker informed that her administration had declared war on the fine Christian pastors of the nation’s fourth largest city?

“When you guys broke the story,” he said.

I’m not sure what’s harder to believe – that the mayor wasn’t involved or that she reads my column.

Moore called the Houston incident a case of “legal bullying” and addressed it in a recent blog posting:

“The separation of church and state means that we will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and we will. But the preaching of the church of God does not belong to Caesar, and we will not hand it over to him. Not now. Not ever.”

Ultimately, this is not about gays or lesbians or a Bathroom Bill. This is about the U.S. Constitution. This is about religious liberty.

This is about a group of pastors refusing to comply with the demands of the government. And they do so at the risk of being held in contempt of court.

Heaven forbid that happens. But if it does, I for one will gladly fly to Houston with a toothbrush in hand and join these brave men of God – behind bars.

One of the reasons why some felt that Houston Mayor Annise Parker may have backed off is that these subpoenas were issued to WHITE pastors only (which clearly would have come back to 'bite her' legally speaking).

Love the sinner, hate the sin: That should be as true regarding homosex as other sins. I'm not Catholic and I'm not a liberal Christian and it seems to me that Rome is simply moving toward the first part of that phrase. Provided it retains its correct view of the second part, all is well.

Babies in hell...yeah that's merciful. It changed over time, the back and forth in Catholic doctrine, but that is a good example of how their leadership handles souls...their decisions are from the pit...then and now.Playing God is serious delusion and the pope(s) and those who hand over authority to them not only mishandle the word of God but horribly mishandle and misrepresent God's perfect character. Serious serious stuff.

Michael Voris is local. He does some very excellent work. He has a video of me speaking at his conference in 2009 up at his website, or searchable on Youtube. You might want to check it out. I don't always agree with Michael, but I deeply respect him and his work.

A legal battle between the city of Houston and religious leaders has erupted into a national debate this week about religious liberty and freedom of speech, even as Mayor Annise Parker argued the controversy was based on a misunderstanding.

Conservative lawmakers and activists expressed outrage upon learning that lawyers acting on behalf of the city had sent subpoenas this month to pastors who had vocally supported a failed petition drive aimed at repealing Houston’s equal rights ordinance.

The ordinance, better known by its acronym, HERO, expanded the city's ban on discrimination to include sexual orientation. It applies to businesses that serve the public, as well as city contractors and municipal workers. The City Council approved it in May after an intense public debate.

In August, city officials announced that an effort by conservative activists and pastors to put the ordinance’s repeal to voters failed to draw enough signatures. Opponents of the ordinance have since taken the issue to the courts, alleging in a lawsuit that the city inappropriately disqualified some of the signatures.

The subpoenas, sent to some outspoken pastors and religious leaders who had opposed the ordinance, had asked for “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

A legal battle between the city of Houston and religious leaders has erupted into a national debate this week about religious liberty and freedom of speech, even as Mayor Annise Parker argued the controversy was based on a misunderstanding.

Conservative lawmakers and activists expressed outrage upon learning that lawyers acting on behalf of the city had sent subpoenas this month to pastors who had vocally supported a failed petition drive aimed at repealing Houston’s equal rights ordinance.

The ordinance, better known by its acronym, HERO, expanded the city's ban on discrimination to include sexual orientation. It applies to businesses that serve the public, as well as city contractors and municipal workers. The City Council approved it in May after an intense public debate.

In August, city officials announced that an effort by conservative activists and pastors to put the ordinance’s repeal to voters failed to draw enough signatures. Opponents of the ordinance have since taken the issue to the courts, alleging in a lawsuit that the city inappropriately disqualified some of the signatures.

The subpoenas, sent to some outspoken pastors and religious leaders who had opposed the ordinance, had asked for “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

A move by Houston officials to bolster their defense of a “non-discrimination” ordinance by issuing subpoenas demanding pastors turn over sermons dealing with homosexuality has stirred such an outrage across America that 1,000 people per hour were signing a petition in opposition.

The Web petition set up by the Family Research Council had collected 25,000 names in 24 hours.

The latest total was nearly 38,000 names.

The signers are standing “unapologetically” with the Houston pastors whose sermons were subpoenaed, and their churches are calling on the city of Houston “to retract their demands and issue a clear statement in support of the FREE SPEECH OF ALL PEOPLE.”

“We are not interested at all in what some person may have preached about me or the GLBT community,” Parker said Wednesday at a news conference. “People are rightly concerned if a government entity tries to in any way inhibit religious speech. That is not the intent.”

Parker said the goal of the subpoenas was to see if there were any specific instructions given by pastors about how the petitions should be filled out. She suggested that the outrage over the word "sermon" in the subpoenas may have been due to “deliberate misinterpretation.”

“Let me just say that one word in a very long legal document which I know nothing about and would never have read and I’m vilified coast to coast — it’s a normal day at the office for me,” Parker said.

But Cruz echoed other conservatives Thursday in framing the issue as a severe threat to religious liberty.

“This is a country that was formed centuries ago by people fleeing religious persecution seeking a land where you do not need to seek the permission of a king or queen or president to preach the word of God, because we serve a higher authority,” Cruz said.

Cliff Kincaid has his own TV channel on Roku -- it is free on the Roku subscription TV networks. I'm very impressed by what I've seen on it so far -- The Roku channel found on the "Weather and News" section is called AMERICA'S SURVIVAL. He has a live program there on Wednesday nights, but the reruns which are priceless are available. I have the High-Definition connection which I plugged into a TV not connected to our Comcast network. It transmits flawlessly. It's like drinking fresh water. I've long been urging that we "vote with our remotes" on much of the propaganda we now receive on network channels. This is another excellent way to "vote with your remote" -- Roku provides a remote system -- installation was easy and it works flawlessly.

THere are, unfortunately, many New Age channels such as Gaiam on Roku also, but on the Roku network, you have CHOICE -- not all is forced down our throats.

Constance @1:12Yes, but it's just a matter of time for the Hegelian Dialectic to do it's work. This year it's "No no, we're not ready for this", next year it will be okey, we surrender to your demands because you've made it so that we will look like meanies if we don't acceptsodomy, er, gayness, er. homosex...queer, er, the awesome alternative lifestyle. They just keep shifting the middle further and further to the left until far left looks like the middle.Thankfully though, God doesn't change. His Word is eternal.

As always, the position of the Church is to love the sinner but hate the sin.

Christ Himself welcomed the woman caught in adultery, but after forgiving her, He told her to "go and sin no more." John 8:11

There are some liberal trouble makers - including a couple of liberal prelates like Cardinal Kasper - who appear to be lobbying for changes in Church moral teaching - which would ultimately be simplyunbiblical.

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The "bishop" who got the demotion is none other than Cardinal Raymond Burke.

First, let me say that I have always tended to like Cardinal Burke and in matters of faith and morals, I am in agreement with him.

That said, I don't think the apparent angst between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis is so much a clash between the two on the issue of the Church's moral teachings per se. I think it is a matter of their clashing over the issue of what ought to be the pastoral approach to those Catholics who fail to live up to the Church's moral teachings, or who disagree with them outright.

I hardly think that Cardinal Burke's announcement that John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi were bad Catholics “in manifest grave sin” who should avoid presenting themselves for Communion is a "pastoral approach" that would meet with Pope Francis' approval.

Pope Saint John Paul II once said that you can't expect to win people to Christ if you go around kicking them in the shins.....and it is very possible that Pope Francis perceives Cardinal Burke's pastoral approach precisely as "kicking people in the shins."

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Then there was that very nasty controversy in St. Louis over the St. Stanislas Kostka parish

involving both the control of the physical and financial assets of the parish and the administrative authority of the archbishop, focused on whether those assets would be controlled by a pastor appointed by the archbishop, which is the canonical norm, or by a lay board of directors who renounced the archbishop's authority over the board. The controversy began under Cardinal John J. Glennon and continued under the late Cardinal Joseph Ritter and his successors, Archbishop John May, Cardinal Justin Rigali, and Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke. The present Archbishop of St. Louis, Robert James Carlson, is endeavoring to find an adequate compromise that satisfies canon law and all concerned parties, but the breakaway members rejected his latest proposal, though efforts are ongoing......

When all is said and done, even if the then Archbishop Burke had a legitimate claim, his ham - handedly allowing the controversy to escalate to the level of a schism may not have set too well with either Pope Francis or his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

It is to be noted, moreover that it was Pope Benedict who originally brought Archbishop Burke to Rome in 2008, promoted him and made him a cardinal in 2010.

Maybe we won't know all the little nuances of "Romanita" on this side of eternity, but for now, suffice to say that it is possible for a Roman Catholic prelate to be "kicked upstairs via Romanita" - a.k.a. "promoted out of the hierarchy." The difference between Pope Francis and Pope Benedict may be that Pope Benedict was a little more subtle.

while the article is on point about homosexuality (and there are satanist and homosexual infiltrators at high levels) to drag in Babylon and focus on use of a chalice or cup is dishonest handling of Scripture.

The Bible speaks of the believers drinking the cup of The Lord and the cup babylon offers is in contrast to that Jesus offers. The whole Hislop and Reformation Rome-is-Babylon thing is flawed historically and biblically, the entire picture (not just one point) of babylon and of the antichrist in Revelation DO NOT FIT Rome.

Homosexuality as a political issue is a communist tactic. (Yuri Bezmenov on you tube) As we move deeper left into corporate fascism led by the central banksters the tactic will be to encourage a lash back at the created gay problem. One of the first laws Castro created was to ban homosexuality as not state behavior. I grow tired of watching so-called-Christians fight tactics instead of the real enemy. Cruz's wife is Goldman Sacs the main player in the Federal Reserve and I question how many of these Pastors can be exposed as heretics anyway, probably most if not all. Sensationalizing this stuff is making it worse and allowing people like Cruz to gain political leverage. The Catholic church is toast, beyond corrupt as are almost every other church in the US. I am much more concerned with the basic lack of Biblical understanding and basic banking knowledge in the US, and the continued plots to make a one world religion under the Catholic church (ie. Tony Palmer and corrupted protestants)than these invented 'gay rights vs pastors' staged events. I think some real focus is needed. Cruz needs real exposure and I fear everyone from Michael Savage telling the Jews we need a Christian president for a safe world to Glenn Beck and more supporting Cruz.. is scary. We could go from having puppets to having 'the bank' in the WH, but it takes these little Hegelian planned events to herd the masses.

Rome does not fit as babylon nor pope as antichrist for these reasons. (not theories, FACTS.)

a. you must always read Scripture in context, not yank some tiny bit loose.

b. the comparisons of babylon's clothing to color of RC vestments fail because these evolved and changed over time.

fish head mitre developed in Middle Ages not earlier.

the antichrist is an individual "the number of a man" someone who has an image that can be worshipped in place of himself, not a system or an organization. Revelation chapter 13 repeatedly speaks of him in ways that can only be said about an individual.

the pope never told people take a mark of any kind, nor tried to limit commerce to his followers.

Vatican is not on any of the hills of Rome but outside present and ancient city limits. The Vatican itself does not date to Constantine.

Constantine made no changes, the idea of his paganization of Christianity started with an anti Christian islamic writer. Irenaeus and Justin Martyr reference the Eucharist as bread and wine made into the literal Body and Blood of Christ in the 100s AD

Hislop's arguments by comparisons, would also require you to reject the Trinity since he shows scads of "divine" triads in paganism, given the dying and resurrecting "gods" he refs, the Resurrection is implicitly impugned (one writer pointed out that most of these pagan resurrecting "gods" have no reference to their resurrecting before Christianity became something to compete against so may have borrowed this).

This is a good point: "Again, the ten-horned beast is the Papacy; the secondbeast, the false prophet, is the Papal clergy; Babylon isPapal Rome. And yet when we turn to the vision of thejudgment of Babylon, we find that it is by the agencyof the beast that her doom is accomplished! "And theten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shallhate the whore (Babylon), and shall make her desolate,give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words ofGod shall be fulfilled." "These have one mind, andshall give their power and strength unto the beast."

The governments of Christendom, therefore, are tolend their power to the Roman Pontiff and priesthoodin order to the destruction of Papal Rome! Canabsurdity be more transparent and complete?" The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson

Until the Reformation, the people RC "persecuted" were not Christians, though claimed assuch by some as supposed underground true church. Albigenians, bogomils, paulicians, were all gnostics, denied the value of the physical creation, held a lesser and evil being made the physical world, denied Jesus had a physical body, denied His death and atonement for us and His bodily physical Resurrection. Ex members reported beliefs, and in one case it was flat out devil worship with plans to infiltrate the Church.

The supposed body count of RC inquisitions are inflated the records indicate around 30,000, I think excludes witch hunts also done by Protestants, which were greatly inflated some modern witch apologists admit, and Protestants also massacred RC.many cities built on 7 hills USA has at least 20 of them

The antichrist will persecute the Church only 3 1/2 years, and only reign 7 years, doesn't fit RC or pope at all.

Well, blame the gays and those who back them. They are the ones in your face with their "issues". The problem is whether you are tired of this, or not, it is not going away. No one will escape the impact. Haven't people noticed that all the stops are being pulled out for anarchy are in place, to pit people against each other, and fulfill the "need" (excuse) for globalist rule, chomping at the bit, to step in can begin?The very compromised apostate church (all brands) and lawless lawmakers are handing it to them as we speak. Buckle up for a rough ride.

Fox News may be constantly promoting a "Republican agenda", but that does not mean that it is conservative. This is especially true when it comes to social issues. Some of their anchors are extremely socially liberal, one of the top executives at Fox News is a big Hillary Clinton supporter, and 21st Century Fox/News Corp. has given the Clintons more than 3 million dollars since 1992."

If there is corruption in the RC, that's one thing.Every denomination has some corruption and everyindividual has some corruption in him.The Antichrist speaks with great swelling words against God and His Christ. He is literally overflowing with venom for all things Christian and he rails against God in no uncertain terms. He is not subtle or veiled in his animosity for the Lord.That does not describe the Roman Catholic Churchnot matter how much someone on a website may belabor the point.It does however describe Islam.

"Constantine made no changes, the idea of his paganization of Christianity started with an anti Christian islamic writer."

Most certainly Constantine did not paganize Christianity, but he certainly politicized it and that was a huge change. The church also accepted that Constantine had the right to make certain ecclesiastical decisions, a terrible mistake of principle.

"The Antichrist speaks with great swelling words against God and His Christ. He is literally overflowing with venom for all things Christian and he rails against God in no uncertain terms. He is not subtle or veiled in his animosity for The Lord".

Do you mean after he deceives millions? He will probably not speak or act this way at first while deceiving millions. Islam is a false religion for sure, but quite obvious to alot of Christians out there.

I wouldn't expect the AC to be so obvious as you seem to think. Remember, he would deceive the very elect if it ere possible.

That is right 8:44, but not them alone, as it is also the corruption in all of the denominations that are doing the harm and that is why all of Christendom is coming "together" like never before. A congregation of foul birds speaking biblically.

The lines (of pure bible doctrine with no add-ons or takeaways) are very blurred now and has become a warm and fuzzy cozy "gospel" rather than the truth about that brutal cross to save men from their sinful themselves (and religion is a mere bandaid that cannot fix the problem of that original sin in the garden and it's aftermath). Christ Himself is the divider and faultless how he does this. (He is the surgeon who cut out the cancer of sin). He has to be, to save men, draw men out of the world system, into God's realm.

The corrupt (soft) gospel is part of that very system that seeks a globalistic (and only horizontal) "solution" from it's wrong perspective. Jesus opposed that with his own vertical Answer and Appeal to all people and what did it get him? Crucified. That is how radical Jesus was when on earth. That is why the persecuted church loves God so much and gives up everything to be identified with him who called them out of darkness in to the light. But not the post modern church, that is rich in earthly wealth and influence in high and corrupt places. These serve their own belly.

And, in case people have forgotten, Jesus is coming back soon, and when he does it will be all of the insteads (popes and preachers, etc) that "churchianity" prescribes for mankinds troubles, that will be overthrown and destroyed. The real church does not play political games with souls and the apostate church (fallen away) is in the system seeking political "answers" to make a better world. (it is not working, it never has).

To God be the glory. He is in command as this plays out to it's bitter end, but also (wait for it!) it's incredible new (and global) beginning.

Constantine and politics - Constantine called the church council and so did some other emperors, but the relationship was not either church in charge or state in charge but a symphony of cooperation. Of course the state was to promote good and punish evil and this can move into things some would dismiss as "religious issues."

when the arian controversy was on, the arians sometimes had control of the imperial power and used it against the Orthodox, then when the emperor was Orthodox later, the churches taken over by arian bishops were restored to the Orthodox.

Anonymous 9:54Yes I'm referring to the AC that has worldly and worldwide power.It seems to me that that will only happen after the Holy Spirit ( that which restrains ) is taken away and, I believe, the Christians with him.Islam is already talking and acting that way, but the Holy Spirit at this time still restrains and limits that what Islam is screaming for. Jesus will come back with his redeemed to wage war on all those islamic countries surrounding Israel. I'm just calling islam what it is: Antichrist.

"Constantine called the church council and so did some other emperors, but the relationship was not either church in charge or state in charge but a symphony of cooperation."

Symphony of Cooperation is a designed phrase that is intended to mask and smooth over what actually went on. Constantine personally came down against the Donatists in a matter of theology which was leading to civil disorder between them and other Christians. The disorder was Constantine's legitimate business. The theology was not. Render unto Caesar...

Frankly I have sympathy with the Donatist view, that congregation leaders who gave away the names of other Christians during mortal persecution should not be given their leadership positions back once the persecution was over. (Clearly they should have been welcomed back into the church as penitents if they showed that they were sorry - but as leaders? No way. Real penitents who had done what they did would regard themselves as unfit to resume leadership over people whose family members they had betrayed.) But the Donatist issue is not really relevant; the point is that the leaders of the church, probably seduced by the earthly wealth and influence that Constantine gave them, closed an ungodly deal with him and let him make binding theological decisions. And let him do that when he had not long been a Christian, despite Paul's warning in 1 Timothy 3:6.

Was that same "symphony" playing when Priscillian was put to death in AD385, the first ever death sentence for heresy for which the church bears responsibility? Whether Priscillian was a heretic is irrelevant. The episode was a disgrace. It showed how quickly and how far the church had sunk, that it had begun denying people freedom of conscience within living memory of persecution that it had suffered. Martin of Tours and some others rightly refused all fellowship with the "jury" that had decided Priscillian's fate, but the church continued down its new road. Weep about it; and when persecution comes back again today or tomorrow, as it will, then be glad that you are considered worth persecuting.

The theology was not entirely outside of the concerns of the state, since it is about suppressing evil. Constantine was particularly interested in the church as a stabilizing force in the empire.

bad theology plus civil disorder is a real good reason to crack down on both at once, since thoughts and words beget actions.

Martin of Tours protested on a jurisdictional basis but probably had doubts about the govt. giving enforcement power like this to the church as for the denunciations against Priscillian at the council, these were not simply because he practiced them but, except for women and men together at prayer, are also condemned by early church canons.

Fasting on Sundays is particularly henious, because that is the day the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and for that reason canons forbid fasting on Sundays. Which somehow didn't stop the modern Orthodox churches from fasting Saturdays (monastic origin prohibition there except for Holy Saturday before Pascha aka Easter) and Sundays nowdays during Lent and other big fasts and having some fast days I think aside from that on Sunday.

I don't follow this practice. Christological basis for a rule trumps any canons and opinions, and the disciplinary canons where they are not enforcing doctrine are open to question as at least only good for the time and place and circumstance they addressed.

Priscillian was also accused of magic, a serious matter, and in this regard it is very odd that he fasted on Sundays. This was in early enough times everyone knew better than to do that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillian

St. Paul warns that doctrines of demons includes forbidding to marry, and Priscillian apparently considered extreme asceticism and permanent celibacy to be the proper goal of all, not just of the priesthood. (In that time I think the west was still allowing married men to be ordained but not ordained men to marry, but they were moving towards total celibacy of clergy, probably due to north african influence who were to blame for the canons allowing them to demand celibacy of bishops, but limited to north africa aka Carthage. Later the attitude got everywhere so now we take bishops from monastics or from already celibate priests or widowed priests not allowed to remarry.)

"I can probably write essays on the Inquisition propaganda that went on for centuries in England which later travelled to the U.S. and became part of the American psyche which will probably take generations to be corrected while so very few in church ever discuss the Protestant Inquisition which was truly a witch-hunt during and after Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

“It is unquestionable . . . that the champions of Protestantism – Luther, Calvin, Beza, Knox, Cranmer and Ridley – advocated the right of the civil authorities to punish the `crime’ of heresy . . . Rousseau says truly:

“`The Reformation was intolerant from its cradle, and its authors were universal persecutors’ . . .

Auguste Comte also writes:

“`The intolerance of Protestantism was certainly not less tyrannical than that with which Catholicism is so much reproached.’ (Philosophie Positive, vol.4, p.51).

Historian B. Walther Kohler stated:

“In Luther’s case it is impossible to speak of liberty of conscience or religious freedom . . . The death-penalty for heresy rested on the highest Lutheran authority . . . The views of the other reformers on the persecution and bringing to justice of heretics were merely the outgrowth of Luther’s plan; they contributed nothing fresh.” (1)

Martin Luther stated:

“Men despise the Evangel and insist on being compelled by the law and the sword.” (51;v.6:262/31)

“It is the duty of the authorities to resist and punish such public blasphemy.” (51;v.6:240)

“If the preacher does not make men pious, the goods are no longer his.” (51;v.6:244)

“Not only the spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether cheerfully or otherwise.” (51;v.6:245)

“It is our custom to affright those who . . . fail to attend the preaching; and to threaten them with banishment and the law . . . In the event of their still proving contumacious, to excommunicate them . . . as if they were heathen.” (51;v.6:263/34)

“Although excommunication in popedom has been shamefully abused . . . yet we must not suffer it to fall, but make right use of it, as Christ commanded.” (122:424-5)

These are truths. But the liberal media, especially the British and German propaganda machines were the greatest spin-artists in history and so many churches believe them even today."

Christine, what you don't seem to realise, or at least care about, is that your position is one that seeks to justify the persecution of people who merely disagree with Trinitarian Christianity. What a lack of empathy and of love that shows! You should be ashamed of yourself - especially since you know that Christians were themselves persecuted simply for their beliefs. Do you think that Christ himself approved of the death sentence passed and enacted on Priscillian? Feel free to waffle all you like in reply, but first answer Yes or No. This is to do with freedom of conscience, not what Priscillian actually believed.

"You disagree with me, my belief system is in power, so I'm going to have you killed." That's your mindset. And with it you join - congratulations - the communists, the Muslims, and many pagan religions. Aren't we Christians supposed to be better than that?

I too am a Trinitarian Christian. You have started another diversion to discuss the Reformers. I condemn ALL involvement of the church corporately in politics; I believe it is acceptable only for Christians to be in politics as individuals, and where that is possible I welcome it. Notice that Christ refused to start a political movement although he had ample option - and pressure - to do so. You won't find a politicized church in the New Testament. But it is clear where the Reformers got this error from: the precedent set by the Vatican.

It takes a considerable reorientation to question what church teaching has held about the Donatists for 1700 years. But consider this. They were simply Christians who were not willing to be led by the same people that had betrayed them to the authorities while persecution was taking place, once that persecution was ended.

I ask you to consider how you might feel today if - to return to Constance's subject - you were in a Houston church and the pastor complied with the Mayor's demand, and emails from you were detected which criticized homosexuality. You were taken to court, you were - thanks to laws put in place a while ago by better men - acquitted, but "the process is the punishment" - you had to spend thousands of dollars, weeks of your time, and much anxiety, before that outcome was secured. The pastor too was nailed, and put in jail for trumped-up procedural irregularities. When he came out of jail he demanded his position back. Having been persecuted by his betrayal of you to the authorities, how would you feel about that demand?

My answer would be: I am to forgive him, and so far as I am concerned he is welcome back in this church if he repents - but as a member of the congregation and NO WAY as leader of those he betrayed, and if he doesn't understand that then I question the seriousness of his repentance.

You can claim I'm showing pride as much as you like in my holding that position. But I aint budging from it.

second answer, freedom of conscience is not the issue, the issue is truth. Freedom is a tool to prevent the suppression of truth by error, it is not an absolute in itself, and when it is, it is an idol.

third answer, you obviously don't know the Scriptures very well, or you wouldn't be pointing to Jesus not starting a political movement.

firstly, HE DID START A POLITICAL MOVEMENT, one which is recruiting citizens for His Kingdom which He set up at that time, but which He will bring into power in His Second Coming.

He told Pilate John 18:26 that "My Kingdom is not of this world," which is mishandled as all mystical eyed otherworldly but wait, CONTEXT.

http://biblehub.com/john/18-36.htm "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." KJV

notice that the various translations agree that "not of this world" is followed by "not from hence" or similar wording. "this world" is this AGE or the time of Pilate (and later), in other words, "NOT YET."

A kind of political claim was evident from the get go, which irritated various caesars, calling Jesus kyrios, a term apparently usually applied to a most high ruler and claiming His authority outweighed caesar's, if the latter gave orders contrary to Jesus Christ.

Now, Romans 13 says govt. is as follows: it is not of the people, by the people and for the people, it is of the people by whoever (in our case the people, with the understanding that they had to be virtuous and able to self police if they didn't want to end up in tyranny because only a virtuous people can have freedom if they misuse it they will lose it and a generic protestant Christianity taken as the assumed method of keeping people virtuous) FOR GOD.

Govt. is to repress evil and secondarily reward good.

And if heresy beyond a certain point tends to create a civil unrest or danger potential, it is a logical target. And if heresy takes over a church and the members who oppose this appeal to caesar to get their buildings back under their control, no reason not to help them, as happened regarding the arians, but this was in the days of the undivided church and now you have so many denominations and so forth and some are heretical from the get go.

I do think that a truth in advertising approach could be taken regarding heresy issue by the state at this point, a lot of churches call themselves Christian but are deviant from the historic core faith and morals and should not be able to use this name and deceive people. Preach what you will but call it what it is or don't call it what it isn't.

As for Trinitarian Christianity, it is the only approach you can take, and not leave The Bible contradicting itself. But if you only read passages out of context with the help of study notes from one viewpoint only you won't see that.

bottom line, Jesus rose from the dead, validating everything He said and did. He validated the OT and did not rebuke Thomas who addressed Him as "my King and my God," something only applicable to YHWH in the OT. The Father is distinct from The Son. So you got TWO Persons and why not a Third Who is referred to many times? Jesus speaks of The Holy Spirit in terms applicable only to a Person, Someone who teaches, acts, brings to your memory what Jesus said, refers to Him in the personal term, "He." So there's the Trinity.

Since Jesus' Kingdom is not here yet, there has to be limits put on govt. enforcement of religion. But this is a temporary matter until the Second Coming.

Donatism denied the validity of sacraments performed by a priest who was in any sin. It wasn't just about what happened during the persecutions, THAT WAS THE NOVATIAN SCHISM.

Donatism, as Augustine pointed out, essentially put the validity of everyone's baptism in doubt, because you cannot know if some secret sin or even secret lack of faith defiled someone in the chain of baptisms back to The Apostles. That would break the chain, making even a true believer unbaptised and invalid if ordained, etc. etc.

Christine I suggest you check your facts starting at the Wikipedia article about Donatism and then the references it gives. And don't get me started on the apostolic succession or the baptism of babies. The latter is what enabled medieval churches to tithe people regardless of their faith. The former is bogus if you stick to the biblical definition of an episkopos of whom there were many in each congregation.

I know what Augustine wrote about it and he was current. If wikipedia disagrees, someone writing has an agenda, or is confused. Of course the issue of betrayal would have been the starting point, but the main thing that developed was denial of validity if there was any sin, a total throwing of reliance off God and onto the clergy is implicit in this.

Baptism of adults or babies, doesn't matter, same issue held.

Apostolic succession is not bogus, the episcopos was initially trained and appointed by an Apostle and it went from there. Note that Paul left Timothy in charge at Ephesus and Titus in Crete.

Read Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp and Justin Martyr from the 100s AD in pre nicene fathers to get a better picture of the early church than you were handed by medieval writers and later who knew nothing and had an axe to grind.

But it doesn't matter whether the Donatists had a legitimate complaint or not, whether you think Apostolic Succession or sacraments are bogus or not, THESE WERE THE ISSUES THE CHURCH OF THOSE DAYS CARED ABOUT and if you think otherwise you have been lied to, or at least taught by people who believed lies.

O dear, o dear o dear. That, Christine, is exactly what the Muslims and the communists say when they put dissenters to death. They too believe it is about truth. I agree with you that we are right and they are wrong, but WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? Clearly you really think we should behave like them, rather than like Jesus did when he met people who didn't believe in him. Didn't he tell us to love our enemies? Yet you prefer to have them killed - and even say that Jesus approves. What do you think your words say about Christianity to any non-Christians reading this blog?

"it doesn't matter whether the Donatists had a legitimate complaint or not, whether you think Apostolic Succession or sacraments are bogus"

Those were indeed the issues of the church at that day, because sadly it was in process of departing from the scriptures. And THAT matters, does it not?

"Apostolic succession is not bogus, the episcopos was initially trained and appointed by an Apostle and it went from there"

You have given the definition of it without refuting my statement that it is bogus. The main purpose of apostolic succession is to try to frighten potential breakaways by telling them that they wouldn't have it so they could never be the church. Which is nonsense if they conform to the New Testament in matters of faith and life. And even worse nonsense of the people saying so don't.

It is true that the Donatist issue was also about the validity of sacraments. The Wikipedia article on Donatism knows that (where is it mistaken then?), but it is not the point I was making - which is about handing back leadership positions to traitors and which you have carefully slid round.

"Read Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp and Justin Martyr from the 100s AD in pre nicene fathers to get a better picture of the early church than you were handed by medieval writers and later who knew nothing and had an axe to grind."

The Fathers are worth reading as church history, but I get my doctrine from the New Testament, with the Old for interpretation where necessary. That is why I do not believe in putting alleged heretics to death. Or even genuine ones. The church should never go beyond excommunication.

As for making such comparisons, the problem is first and foremost that they are attacking truth and defending a lie, secondly they are far more trigger happy than we ever were. And since this really should be a matter for the state to chew over not churches to be free to do the executing, this gives plenty of leeway for avoiding excess. The Albigensians were a very unusual situation.

I oppose Inquisitions beyond a mild sort for another reason, overlooked by militants. When fear (other than the sight of Christ in Person coming back as a lion not a lamb) whether of authorities or social status issues is much of a player then you have tons and tons of nominal Christians. Not a good thing.

To serve this upsurge in Church membership, you have to get lots more clergy, which means a lot are going to be nominals also, and the next generation will be catechized by nominals.

Not a good thing.

Church Fathers aren't a SOURCE of doctrine but a CONFIRMATION of what was being done and taught.

real presence in Eucharist is indicated in NT, and taught by men one or two removes from an Apostle, SO IT IS LEGITIMATE.

Apostolic Succession has its roots in the issue of ordination which is laying on of hands and clearly taught in the NT. You get ordained by someone with authority to do so, who got that from ordination back to Apostles.

As for controlling people, if the faith and life of a church is indeed NT Christian, it wouldn't need to be controlled.

But the protestant faith is as deviant in its way as RC in some other ways from NT.

Holy Water - Biblical precedents. Miraculous relics - Elisha's bones brought a dead man back to life, biblical precedent. Blessed objects - blessed cloths sent by Paul to heal people, biblical precedent. Use of lamps, incense a universal pattern of worship where did the pagans get the idea? How about from the primordial faith that was fallen away from in the first place? They are mandated in OT worship and shown with liturgical worship in heaven in Revelation.

Rules of the priesthood and change of law that comes with a change of priesthood as per Hebrews is not about forms of worship.

Now, do you recite the Nicene Creed in your church? Does it include the filioque (that The Holy Spirit "proceeds from The Father AND THE SON" filioque is "and The Son" in Latin)?

Did you ever notice that when Jesus talked about The Holy Spirit in John's Gospel, He never said that? He said "The Holy Spirit WHO PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER," and also said He would send The Holy Spirit FROM THE FATHER.

The filioque is unbiblical, and this is why the Orthodox rejected it. Rome added it illicitly and over the protests of a pope prior to the pope who added it.

Thank you for the benefit of your opinions on a dozen irrelevant subjects Christine. The fact remains that you thought it was right for Priscillian to be put to death for his beliefs peacefully held, rather than simply excommunicated; and likewise in principle for other heretics. That is appalling given that the apostolic church was an opt-in volunteer organisation willing to be persecuted for its beliefs peacefully held, and that Christ blessed those of his own faith who cursed him. Thank God you are not in any position of authority.

If you want a fight about the filioque, go fight the Catholics. I refuse to engage about something the Bible is silent about. Jesus' words are about the temporal procession of the Holy Spirit (ie the giving of it to the church) rather than the eternal procession (ie the intrinsic relations within the Trinity).

The Bible is not silent. Jesus says He will send The Holy Spirit "Who proceeds from The Father," and the only temporal part is His sending Him into the Church, but He Who is sent "proceeds from The Father" not "from The Father and The Son."

Now, it is possible to recite the filioque and mean by it a mix of eternal and temporal, and modern RC apologists seems to argue that there is no double origin involved but that is not what the original position was, and if you want to see where this can lead look up Photios the Great Mystagogy of The Holy Spirit online.

http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/photios_mystagogy1.html

The whole pattern of dogmatic definitions being produced by councils, in response to deviations from the teaching of the Church, was to clarify and eliminate ambiguities that could either create misunderstanding or be exploited by heretics. The filiogue being ambiguous at best is a step backward.

The Bible is not silent. Jesus says He will send The Holy Spirit "Who proceeds from The Father," and the only temporal part is His sending Him into the Church, but He Who is sent "proceeds from The Father" not "from The Father and The Son."

Where in the Bible is the phrase you have put in quotation marks? If you are referring to John 14:26, a reasonably literal translation of the Greek is simply that "the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name".

I repeat: there is nothing in the NT which unambiguously states that the Holy Spirit proceeds in heaven from the Father alone. All of the verses about the sending or reception of the Holy Spirit are about the Spirit entering the churches, which obviously is an event in chronos-time.

Please notice that I am not insisting that the Filioque is correct and thereby disagreeing with you. I refuse to speculate about such a deep mystery. Insistence on the truth of differing speculations has led to needless schism between believers.

"St. Martin of Tours also disapproved of bringing a church case, before a civil tribunal. And compelled the emperor to rescind ALL orders after the death of Bishop Priscillian.

Once, again you're incorrect here."

Nope, I said he complained on the basis of jurisdiction and that is exactly what this includes.

however, the technical charge was magic and this has been a secular issue in all ages, not just Christian. The first witch trial I ever heard of was from Babylonia, against someone charged with doing harm using magic.

Martin of Tours must have been opposing because the charge was a way of getting heresy into secular court context.

8 minutes away from this morning's internet radio program, www.TMEradio.com. My guest second hour is/was a prominent Christian military chaplain with officer rank in military. He has worked to develop a Bible annotated for mlitary use. We will be talking about that and battles against Christians and other monotheists in the miltary by neopagan, New Age interests.

anon 8:31 "Where in the Bible is the phrase you have put in quotation marks? If you are referring to John 14:26, a reasonably literal translation of the Greek is simply that "the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name". "

John 15:26 "...The Spirit of truth Who proceeds from The Father...."

"Please notice that I am not insisting that the Filioque is correct and thereby disagreeing with you."

I am not concerned with whether anyone disagrees with me or not. I am concerned that I not disagree with Scripture

"I refuse to speculate about such a deep mystery."

No speculation is required, it is explicitly stated. Jesus in the same passage begins with "When the Helper [NKJV The Greek translated Comforter is more like helper], Whom I shall send to you from The Father," which is about action in time but then goes on to describe The Holy Spirit Himself, saying He is The Spirit of Truth and that He proceeds from The Father, so this is about matters of eternity.

"Insistence on the truth of differing speculations has led to needless schism between believers."

yes outright heresies come from speculation and the filioque is speculation or at best sloppiness. the predestination and once saved always saved thing is more speculation, going beyond what little is said and ignoring many things said.

Anybody can do that mental ascent in their own "pet beliefs", but for a person to live life in actual agreement with actual Scripture, (all of it) being not just a hearer but a doer as well?.....it seems that the rubber meets the road, in that you or any one of us for that matter, better be wrestling that one out (some fear and trembling goes with on some occasions too I notice).

There is no real repentance in people these days and faith is often misplaced, really for the many it is displaced in their "faith" instead of God-who he is and what he has said.

Dear 2.30pm, In one sense it has always been "end times"; the New Testament says so (1 John 2) and I am not going to contradict that. But Jesus will come back bodily to this earth at a particular day and time in our calendars, and he gave us the signs that this event was approaching, so it is legitimate to wonder how close we are in the light of those signs.

Jesus is going to cleanse the churches in our culture by means of persecution. Let us hope that we have the faith to welcome it.

Christine you make a good case against the Filioque from John 15:26. But does it matter? God is not an object to ponder rationally or mystically, but One whom we may know. We need only contrast St Paul's passion about that with the philosophical wafflings on BOTH sides of the debate (at the Wikipedia page on "Filioque") to see that something has gone very wrong.

In any case you brought up the Filioque as a diversion from criticism of your propensity to support the legal killing of heretics, such as Priscillian.

Some of your views about Martians would without question have been regarded as heretical in medieval times. I am not commenting here on the truth or otherwise of your views, but I would hope the fact that you would be executed as a heretic at certain times and places would make you reconsider your horrible ideas about what to do with heretics. I repeat: the church must never go beyond excommunication. Civil disturbances are Caesar's department, but spiritual matters are not.

The dispute over the ‘filioque’ (“and the Son”) is one of misinterpretation on the part of the EO and is unnecessarily divisive. In John 15:26, the two phrases “whom I will send from the Father” and “who proceeds from the Father” are best seen as being in synonymous parallel. Yes, there are two different verbs used here – the first one, πέμπω, “dispatch,” the second, ἐκπορεύομαι, “proceed,” “come out” – but one should never try to establish doctrine from one, lone verse, especially one that is not specifically referencing ontology by its context. The “proceeding” from the Father – if one is inclined to limit the discussion to only John 15:26 – is best understood as missional, not eternal origin. This doesn't necessarily deny that the Spirit may actually emanate eternally from the Father as opposed to the Son, but one cannot argue this on the basis of John 15:26.

The verb used here, ἐκπορεύομαι, is also used in John’s Gospel in 5:29 in reference to all who will ‘come out’ of their graves at the eschaton. So, for the argument from the side of the EO to remain consistent, it would have to be that the grave is the point of origin from which all (except those alive at Jesus’ coming) will “proceed.” Obviously, the grave is NOT their actual origin, for each had a life prior to their respective deaths. Moreover, this same verb is used in Matthew 3:5 in reference to those who “came out” from Jerusalem, Judea and the region of the Jordan. While these geographic areas may have been where these individuals lived, I don’t think we can conclude that each of these individuals necessary was born in their respective locales. More decisive, perhaps, are Jesus’ words referencing those unclean by “what comes out of his mouth” in Matthew 15:11, for it’s the thoughts in the mind/heart that precede the words coming out of one’s mouth. And, etc.

Hence, the foregoing, as well as the other Scriptures which reference the Son as sending the Spirit (John 16:7, e.g.), as well as those referencing the Spirit as the "Spirit of Christ" (Romans 8:9; Phil 1:19), indicates that the argument against the filioque is not on solid ground.

not really. Because the whole point about The Trinity as One God in Three Persons, The Father alone unoriginate, without origin, yet The Son and The Holy Spirit CO ETERNAL with The Father, is that The Father contains the other Two, and that Jesus The Son was not just begotten at some point before Incarnated, but that He ongoingly eternally always did, does now and always will being begotten by The Father, and The Holy Spirit always was, is now, and always will be eternally proceeding from being spirated by The Father.

So in fact The Holy Spirit comes out of The Father as per origin, and as for the dead, they come out of the grave as the origin or start of their resurrected lives.

not really. Because the whole point about The Trinity as One God in Three Persons, The Father alone unoriginate, without origin, yet The Son and The Holy Spirit CO ETERNAL with The Father, is that The Father contains the other Two, and that Jesus The Son was not just begotten at some point before Incarnated, but that He ongoingly eternally always did, does now and always will being begotten by The Father, and The Holy Spirit always was, is now, and always will be eternally proceeding from being spirated by The Father.

So in fact The Holy Spirit comes out of The Father as per origin, and as for the dead, they come out of the grave as the origin or start of their resurrected lives.

You've not even attempted to engage with my argument, countering your assertion that John 15:26 'proves' that the Spirit ontologically, eternally "proceeds" from the Father. All you've done is placed your own preconception unto the verse, thereby engaging in eisegesis rather than exegesis.

I've even conceded that the idea put forth by the EO is metaphysically possible; however, the plain truth is that we do not have explicit Scripture to back up the view with certainty. However, we DO have Scripture which speaks of Jesus sending the Spirit, and explicit words that the Spirit is "the Spirit of Christ." Given that, a dual-'procession' can be better argued for from a Scriptural basis.

"You've not even attempted to engage with my argument, countering your assertion that John 15:26 'proves' that the Spirit ontologically, eternally "proceeds" from the Father. All you've done is placed your own preconception unto the verse, thereby engaging in eisegesis rather than exegesis."

Wrong. I disproved your argument by showing that your eisegesis based on a meaning of proceed in Greek is not relevant, because although the human resurrected had a life and origin before he or she died, the statement is about proceeding from/coming out of the grave in context of resurrection, and this is the start of their resurrected life, the new origin, so is not appropriate.

The Holy Spirit never died and never dies, so needs no second origin. He proceeds from The Father, while the human first "proceeds" from the womb, then "proceeds" from the tomb.

Martians I think are human originally, and this wasn't so much an issue in the Middle Ages and some churchmen speculated this, it was other stuff got Giordano Bruno executed.

Most of the church executions were done by civil arm which had laws in place to protect the citizens against evil incl. spiritual evil.

However, things can get way out of hand with this kind of thing. For one thing it can make the "victims" into martyrs.

Calvin was so trigger happy he had a man killed for making a cartoon of him. Those who complain of RC executions, which were in the tens of thousands not millions according to research in their records, need to look at the Protestant track record of massacring RC and heretics and how Cromwell and his troops conducted themselves. There was even a horrified witness who was persuaded to tell what scared the shit out of him after he followed Cromwell into the woods once, seems he saw Cromwell sell his soul to the devil for military victory.

While there may have been a wholesale inclination to keep questionable folk practices in pop Catholicism that opened doors to occult bondage, not to mention corruption and the dead baby skeletons in monasteries tell a tale, the removal of relics and Holy Water also meant less restraint on demonic and psychic attack type activities.

my book A Possible History of Life on Mars makes a pitch for Jesus Christ and is strictly biblical. If anyone were to bother to either buy it, or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for 9.99 a month you could read it for free and you could read any other kindle ebook free that was on the kindle unlimited list, you might have some notion of what the book says.

You wrote, Wrong. I disproved your argument by showing that your eisegesis based on a meaning of proceed in Greek is not relevant…

With all due respect, it is you who is imposing an a priori view upon John 15:26.

Proper exegesis takes the verse on its face and interprets from there. Nowhere in this verse or surrounding context is there anything remotely related to ontology or eternality (and I’d already noted that the two phrases “whom I will send from the Father” and “who goes out from the Father” are best understood as being parallel with each other). Clearly, the verse is speaking of the forthcoming mission of Spirit, rather than the ultimate origin of the Spirit. While a word can have more than one meaning, one cannot just impose a meaning upon a particular verb without warrant. This is why I illustrated other uses of this same verb. My main point is that your position asks too much of this particular verb. But, I’ll get more specific in the following.

The EO case would be better made if the verb used were something like γινόμαι. Here are some definitions from the BDAG lexicon:

1) to come into being through process of birth or natural production, be born, be produced2) to come into existence, be made, be created, be manufactured, be performed3) come into being as an event or phenomenon from a point of origin, arise, come about, develop4) to occur as process or result, happen, turn out, take place5) to experience a change in nature and so indicate entry into a new condition, become someth.

As one can see, this verb is explicitly about origin. Conversely, the one used in John 15:26 is a verb of motion. To be more specific, the verb πορεύω is prefixed by the preposition ἐκ, with the latter meaning “out of,” “from,” and the like. Taken together, the BDAG defines ἐκπορεύομαι (bold added):

1) to be in motion from one area to another, go2) to come forth from, come/go out, proceed

Essentially, by adding the prefix, it limits πορεύω to one of departure, rather than either referencing departure or destination depending on context. The BDAG defines πορεύω as (bold added): to move over an area, gener[ally] with a point of departure or destination specified, go, proceed, travel.

Hence, one cannot use John 15:26 to argue for eternal, ontological “procession,” with “procession” meaning something akin to genesis, generation, beginning, etc. as that is not part of the semantics of this particular verb.

The understanding of the early Church was always that the Holy Spirit proceeded from The Father period. This is proved by the original Creedal statement, construction in answer to heretics, the part about The Holy Spirit being added in a council after Nicea I, to answer the heretics who denied either the personality or full divinity (I forget which) of The Holy Spirit.

The filioque was added centuries later in the west only, and was a bone of contention before The Great Schism of AD 1054. (RC uses this term for a later squabble over the papacy.)

The passage in John speaks of Jesus sending The Holy Spirit into the Church, yes, BUT

In describing The Holy Spirit Who He is sending from The Father, He says "Who proceeds from the father."

As for semantics of the verb, take it up with the people of the time THEY SPOKE THE LANGUAGE AS THEIR FIRST LANGUAGE YOU DON'T and neither do modern Greeks whose language is a later dialect.

The Procession of The Holy Spirit from The Father alone was challenged later, so it is obviously an original doctrine in The Church, and the few Fathers who said anything resembling the filioque were mostly talking about travel from A to B not about absolute origin, or sloppily combining the two.

Let's unpack this verse.

"But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from The Father"

there is this Person who is going to come, how is He going to come to The Church, Jesus is going to send Him, but where is He coming from?

"Whom I will send unto you from The Father"

Jesus sends Him FROM THE FATHER, so He is so to speak nested in The Father.

And Who in the sense of characteristics not just a label is this Person?

"even the Spirit of Truth" He is all about truth "which [or who http://biblehub.com/parallel/john/15-26.htm] proceedeth from The Father"

okay, these are some identifying features of Him, not just a label. He is a Helper or "Comforter" a poor translation, but He IS The Spirit of Truth, and you can say of Him, as you would say "whoever who was born in and came from Boise Idaho" you say The Holy Spirit "PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER" just like "whoever" who proceeds from Boise Idaho though not just like that, because whoever has a time before which he or she was not, while The Holy Spirit always existed.

So Jesus is going to send The Holy Spirit to The Church (action in time never mind syntax, this is what is being referred to the event at Pentecost) and He is sending Him "from The Father" and He "proceeds from The Father." While the former seems a reference to transportation so to speak, the latter is redundant unless it means origin issues.

oh, yeah, and "He shall testify of Me."So when you hear a lot of emphasis on The Holy Spirit get out of there, because He doesn't throw focus on Himself.

The other promise "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John 14:26 is often taken by protestants as reason to believe each individual can understand The Bible without any help for him or herself. (This in practice is disavowed, every time someone looks in a study Bible notes, or asks another Christian for help in understanding something or reads exegetical books.)

But TO WHO WAS THIS SAID? to the Apostles, to people Jesus had spoken to in Person during His time on earth, note the phrase "whatsoever I have said unto you."

So this is primarily to the Apostles, not to us, but we have a smaller share of it. I and others have experienced God reminding us of a Scripture verse of relevance to a situation or discussion.

But this promise is why we can trust the Apostolic writings, and can reasonably trust people like Irenaeus and others who were only two or three removes from the personal teaching of the Apostles and who were regularly attending members of churches, as to what was correct doctrine.

It is also why we cannot trust innovations in doctrine "development" etc. whether RC or evangelical or charismatic.

The First Council of Constantinople added the Holy Spirit to the Nicene Creed in order to define the Trinity against those who denied the Spirit’s divinity. It did not, however, specify eternal procession/generation. Here the words in English:

And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.

And here’s the applicable phrase in Greek:

τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενονwho from the Father proceedingwho proceeds from the Father

Note the last word is the present participle of ἐκπορεύομαι (John 15:26 uses the present indicative). My point is that the Second Ecumenical Council merely uses a form of the very verb used in John 15:26. So, to reiterate, it doesn’t specify eternal origin of the Spirit.

As to your contention that the phrases in John 15:26 are redundant, here’s the entire verse in Greek, which I’ll break up into three pieces for illustrative purposes:

Ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ παράκλητος ὃν ἐγὼ πέμψω ὑμῖν παρὰ τοῦ πατρόςWhen comes the parakletos whom I send you from the FatherWhen the Paraklete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,

τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας ὃ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεταιthe Spirit of Truth, who from the Father proceeds/goes outthe Spirit of Truth, who proceeds/goes out from the Father,

It’s clear to see that the second clause is a restatement of the first, with “Paraklete” and “Spirit of Truth” in parallel, and “whom I will send to you from the Father” and “who proceeds from the Father” also in parallel. The very last clause specifies temporality: When the Spirit (later) comes “He will testify about me.” Note that both “send” and “testify” are reflecting future temporal reference. To claim that the middle portion is referring to eternal “procession” belies the context (and adds an interpretation to the verb not found in any other NT context), as the main thrust is the near-future forthcoming mission of the Spirit.

Here's perhaps an even better counter example. In Mark 13:1, the same verb is used - in fact the exact same form of the verb used in the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed (ἐκπορευόμενον) - for Jesus leaving/going out from the temple. Quite obviously, this is referring to his motion away from the temple (His point of departure), having nothing to do with origin

"Note the last word is the present participle of ἐκπορεύομαι (John 15:26 uses the present indicative)."

Jesus would not have used this referring to a future event, The Holy Spirit coming to the Church, He said He would send Him after He went to The Father.

the use of this tense proves the point of eternal procession, because The Holy Spirit is from The Father and proceeds from The Father, His origin is ongoingly from The Father past present and future, eternal now.

Meanwhile, keep the Kurds in your prayers, apparently its not that dangerous to convert to Christianity among them, they have 10% (or more?) Christian population and though they are sunni muslims technically, they are more concerned with their people and customs and living peaceably with neighbors than the usual muslims.

Kurdish controlled places are the only reliably safe places for Christians in Syria and Iraq now (though I guess its safe in Assad controlled zones, which can shift).

"Note the last word is the present participle of ἐκπορεύομαι (John 15:26 uses the present indicative)."

Jesus would not have used this referring to a future event, The Holy Spirit coming to the Church, He said He would send Him after He went to The Father.

the use of this tense proves the point of eternal procession, because The Holy Spirit is from The Father and proceeds from The Father, His origin is ongoingly from The Father past present and future, eternal now.

Given that, in context, Jesus said He would send the Spirit (from the Father) after He went to the Father, this does, in fact, mean it is a future event, does it not? The future event is clearly Christ’s Ascension, is it not?

Your last paragraph is at least partially correct. I didn’t wish to get this technical, but here goes (the current series on my blog covers the following). The so-called “present” tense in Koine Greek is what is called imperfective aspect, or ‘incomplete,’ continuous action. This is as opposed to perfective, or complete (not necessarily completed) action. Using this tense-form means, as you correctly state, that the Spirit comes ongoingly from the Father, yes, but the temporal reference is not specifically identified in that isolated clause, in that we cannot say definitively when. It may include the past, but, given the larger context, it doesn’t appear that way (this is not to deny that the Spirit didn’t come from the Father in OT times, e.g.). Most logically, from the rest of the verse and surrounding context, it means that when Jesus goes to the Father, the Spirit will be sent from the Father to indwell all future believers. However, it IS possible that the usage here is in a general, omnitemporal (but not eternal) sense. But, again, the overall context is speaking strictly from a temporal perspective, relative to the future sending of the Spirit, having NOTHING to do with anything eternal, much like Mark 13:1 refers to Jesus leaving the temple at a particular time, with no reference to His eternal origin.

And, as I’ve stated earlier, to use one verse to establish doctrine is never prudent – most especially by importing a meaning on a verb foreign to any other known usage.

To reiterate, I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the theology of eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father. I’m disagreeing with your position that Scripture, most particularly John 15:26, explicitly states this. John 15:26 is clearly speaking from a temporal perspective.

Its pretty hard to explicitly state something like this without going into a long lecture about eternity vs. time and Jesus - as is typical of God - gives you all you need to know right now, with some hints to figure out what you need to know later.

The use of this tense allows you to figure this out later. The holy fathers did not like to go beyond Scripture, and were as leery of using a non Scriptural term out of pagan philosophy terminology in forming the Creed, homoousios same substance regarding Jesus being divinity same as The Father. Modern protestant fundies would be happy with them. The decision to use the term was based on it being the best available term to explain what The Bible teaches and not be wordy.

"I don't do diversions. I deal with many subjects. Martians I think are human originally..."

You've just done it again! I mentioned Martians only in the context of your foul views that heretics should be put to death, because for your views about Martians you would have been executed. (Your views are not Bruno's, and whether or not they are biblical isn't the point either; YOU say they are, but would Renaissance Rome?) I hoped the fact that your views so blithely held might rebound on you at another time and place would cause you to reconsider. But now you are trying to justify those views because of "spiritual danger". That is the argument given by every Muslim and communist judge for executing people who peaceably disagree with them. It is a failure of love, a failure of empathy, a failure of the ability to look through the eyes of people holding differing views having nothing to do with whether those persons are right. And it gives the world an appalling perception of Christians.

"There was even a horrified witness who was persuaded to tell what scared the shit out of him after he followed Cromwell into the woods once, seems he saw Cromwell sell his soul to the devil for military victory. While there may have been a wholesale inclination to keep questionable folk practices in pop Catholicism that opened doors to occult bondage, not to mention corruption and the dead baby skeletons in monasteries tell a tale..."

I don't believe that tale about Cromwell. And before you reply about abuses of power when he ran Britain and Ireland, I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about him selling his soul to Satan. That incident either happened as you describe it or it didn't. I say it didn't. YOU are making the accusation; YOU provide the evidence and the (contemporary) reference.

Why am I skeptical? Because Cromwell was, fairly obviously if you read in depth about him, a committed Christian in his personal life who was simply following in the wretched 1300-year-old tradition (in his day) of politicizing the faith.

As for the allegations of graveyards in convents for babies born to nuns who were sexually active despite their vows (and single status), I looked into this a while ago and all of the claims I found of such burial grounds ran into the sand of unsourced referencing. I am prepared to believe it, for the archives of the Provveditori sopra Monasteri, a group of magistrates charged by the Venetian authorities with cleaning up the city’s convents beginning in the early 16th century, contain 20 volumes of trials for the cohabitation of monks and nuns. In Italy at least, a high proportion of aristocratic widows and spinsters were permitted to become nuns, often to save their families from paying out dowries. (Some of their antics, culled from Vatican archives, are recorded in the book Nuns Behaving Badly by Craig Monson.) If you can do better than me and find a reliable reference for such a babies' graveyard, do give it here.

With the benefit of some sleep, I’m able to see the logical fallacy in the following:

the use of this [present] tense proves the point of eternal procession, because The Holy Spirit is from The Father and proceeds from The Father, His origin is ongoingly from The Father past present and future, eternal now.

First of all, you are now trying to make the verb do even more by claiming it’s being used for temporal ‘sending’ from the Father ANDeternal ‘proceeding’ from the Father. So, your initial argument went from the claim of eternal ‘procession’ akin to genesis/beginning to a dual claim of both eternal ‘procession’ and temporal sending. Well, I suppose I’ll take this as a partial concession.

Moreover, your argument above is glaringly circular. Your position is that the present tense verb ‘proves’ eternal procession because of it ‘proving’ eternal procession (“because the Holy Spirit is from The Father and proceeds from The Father, His origin is ongoingly from The Father past present and future, eternal now”). Your subsequent appeal about not wishing to be “going into a long lecture about eternity vs. time” only serves to obfuscate the issue at hand.

When Jesus states “I and the Father are [present tense] one” He is stating an eternal truth; however, when He tells the Samaritan woman at the well “I who speak [present tense] to you am He [the Christ],” and when Jesus tells the woman “the man you have [present tense] now is not your husband” He is speaking temporally. It’s all about context.

not circular, it is based on the same context issue in your last paragraph. Context, Jesus talking about sending The Holy Spirit, and He DESCRIBES Who He sending as well as merely naming Him. He will SEND HIM FROM THE FATHER that is temporal, HE WHO PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER that is a description about WHO HE IS like part of your description incl. when and where you were born, that is of course eternal. That He is "The Spirit of Truth" is another descriptive statement though it can be a name, most names in ancient times were descriptors actually.

Bear in mind that God is very concise you see this throughout The Bible, packs a lot of information in minimal space, even the Major Prophets are each a collection of many smaller segments revealed separately to the prophet.

This is one of the characteristic differences between God's words in The Bible and fake revelations after that, they are always wordy.

Again, if the filioque was tradition back to Jesus and The Apostles, why was it never present in formal baptismal statements standardized in the Creed? why was it such an issue when Rome approved it? Why did some earlier popes oppose it?

Christian doctrine is cumulative; that is, our understanding of Scripture increases as time goes. This is evident in the events leading up to and including the Councils and the making of the Creeds themselves; for certainly, it would seem to have made sense to fully define the Holy Spirit at Nicea rather than wait until the Second Ecumenical Council. Moreover, e.g., the doctrine of Atonement went through various changes.

So, just because some in the early Church adhered to a particular doctrine does not mean that doctrine is in fact true. Progressive illumination may refine earlier beliefs.

Roman Catholic theologian Raymond Brown’s excellent commentary on the Gospel of John paraphrases/renders John 15:26 as: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you [myself]” (p. 649). He clearly understands the future tense of will send and will testify as indicating a future tense ‘sending/proceeding’ of the Spirit, and that the two clauses are restatements in parallel. This is in accord with the full context.

I think your preconception of eternal origin of the Spirit is inducing you to read too much into the imperfective (continuous, ongoing) aspect of the present tense in ἐκπορεύομαι (come/go out, proceed). Let me explain aspect a bit further by using English examples. In the following are two sets of examples of perfective (complete, wholistic action) followed by imperfective (incomplete action) aspect, the first set past tense, the second future:

He ranHe was running

She is going to eatShe is going to be eating

The first of each describes the action as one whole event, while the second describes the internal action without regard to its beginning or ending. Imperfective aspect does not mean the action continues into infinity. As we can see, the first set above is describing action in the past, while the second set is yet future. But note that in the second set is going is a present tense verb used in a context of a future reference.

Let’s put all this together and apply to John 15:26. The Gospel writer’s intention, in view of the larger context, is that upon Jesus’ ‘going away’ the Paraklete will be with the disciples. Jesus will send the Paraklete from the Father, and the Paraklete will be proceeding from the Father. Then, the Paraklete will testify about Christ.

Later, Brown goes on to explain: “The verb is [ἐκπορεύεται]…Many of the Greek Fathers thought that John was referring to eternal procession…However, even though the tense of the verb is present, the coming forth is in parallelism with the “I shall send” in the next line and refers to the mission of the Paraclete/Spirit to men (see NOTE on 16:28). The writer is not speculating about the interior life of God; he is concerned with the disciples in the world” (p 689; emphasis added).

"Christian doctrine is cumulative; that is, our understanding of Scripture increases as time goes. This is evident in the events leading up to and including the Councils and the making of the Creeds themselves; for certainly, it would seem to have made sense to fully define the Holy Spirit at Nicea rather than wait until the Second Ecumenical Council. Moreover, e.g., the doctrine of Atonement went through various changes."

Wrong. the Councils were called over dogmatic issues, because NEW IDEAS had sprung up and were making trouble, and these new cumulative developments or whatever were condemned.

The Councils did not make doctrine, they defended it, and standardized variant but equivalent baptismal creedal statements, into a Creed at Nicea that incl. "I believe in The Holy Spirit," but when new ideas were put forth they had to add what the OLD AND CORRECT IDEA WAS, that He proceeds from The Father, that He is with The Father and Son worshipped and glorified and that He spoke by the Prophets and is the Lord and Giver of life.

The Atonement was understood and explained perfectly by Paul, and only the queasiness of elegant refined type pagans and Origen too much of that mindset himself created situations that required clear restatements of the obvious, that Atonement which means covering was needed the sin needed to be covered in blood that was worth more than the whole universe put together, a substitution done by God as man because we couldn't to come out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light, so that theosis would be possible. The separation of these two as alien to each other is a notion cooked up less than 200 years ago by a few people in Russia and has infected a lot of Orthodox seminaries. The parody of atonement as an angry God Who needs to beat up His Son and divine child abuse (Jesus was not a child when this happened) is not even a correct picture of substitutionary atonement, and even if debt is left out, all alternative versions have some degree of substitution built in, you can't avoid it.

The purpose of dogmatic definitions was to eliminate false ideas that developed after the Apostles, and to eliminate ambiguities that confuse the innocent or are exploited by heresiarchs.

There is no room in Christianity for cumulative doctrine. It is the one true faith delivered once and for all to The Apostles. Everything else is either not really Christianity or a crippled, compromised Christianity.

If you’re going to counter my argument, please do so by engaging specifically with it. I stated that “our understanding of Scripture increases as time goes,” which then makes it (our understanding of Scripture) “cumulative.” No one has a perfect understanding of Scripture. We all (should) learn from each other. This is why the Ecumenical Councils/Creeds carry more weight than the writings of any single Father.

Yes, each Council was convened to counter certain heretical developments; but, it’s also clear that understandings of such doctrines as the Trinity, Christology, and especially the Atonement were divergent – and not just among the heretics. Your statement/argument that Paul “understood and explained perfectly” the Atonement does not indicate that others understood Paul on the Atonement. Given the number of different views on just what constitutes Atonement over the centuries, it’s clear that this was not fully understood in the Patristic era. In fact, the early Church Fathers themselves held differing views.

I don’t expect you’ll change your interpretation of John 15:26 and your view on the filioque. But, at least I was able to investigate it for myself and put forth what I deem is the most logical interpretation, given the full context of 15:26, for any other interested reader here.

I missed your 3:09 since you addressed it as to an ‘anon;’ but, 8:22 was my comment.

You wrote: anon 8:22 you just don't get it and I don't think you want to get it.

If I were unkind, I could level that charge at you…

You wrote: And the writer wasn't speculating he was repeating what Jesus said.

You may believe that the Gospel writers recorded Jesus’ words exactly as He spoke them; but, I’m not so sure we can conclude this given the disparity between the Synoptics in a number of areas (different direct quotations, some quotes moved to different times, locales, etc.). As one explicit example, check the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ in Matthew 6:9-13 and compare to Luke 11:2-4. One more for good measure: Matthew records Jesus’ statement about settling legal disputes in 5:25-26 before recording the Lord’s Prayer, while Luke references Jesus’ words on this matter after the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 12:58-59).

Nonetheless, I think Brown should have phrased that differently, such as: “Jesus, as recorded by the Gospel writer, is not describing the interior life of the Godhead…”

You wrote: And BOTH action in time and the nature of the Being referred to (which incl. His origin in eternity) are described.

I’ve already detailed the grammatical and contextual fallacy in such a thought. But, I feel pretty sure that 1) You’ll continue in your assertion; and, 2) you’ll have the last word. Go for it.

Craig, You wrote an interesting comment to Christine, as follows: "You may believe that the Gospel writers recorded Jesus’ words exactly as He spoke them; but, I’m not so sure we can conclude this given the disparity between the Synoptics in a number of areas (different direct quotations, some quotes moved to different times, locales, etc.). As one explicit example, check the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ in Matthew 6:9-13 and compare to Luke 11:2-4. One more for good measure: Matthew records Jesus’ statement about settling legal disputes in 5:25-26 before recording the Lord’s Prayer, while Luke references Jesus’ words on this matter after the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 12:58-59)."

In most cases it can safely be assumed that Jesus gave a similar sermon or was asked the same question on more than one occasion, so that we do have his words (translated into Greek from his own tongue amongst his own people). But one incident clearly makes your point: Jesus' tussle with the Pharisees in Matthew 19:3-9 and Mark 10:2-12. Parallels in the accounts of Matthew and Mark, and in the incidents they report before and after, indicate that they are speaking of the same incident: before, Jesus leaves Galilee for Judea (in Matthew 19:1 and Mark 10:1); afterwards, children are brought to him and he tells the parable of the rich man (in Matthew 19:13-30 and Mark 10:13-31). The Pharisees ask him if divorce is acceptable and whether (as Hillel’s school asserted) any reason will do. But Matthew and Mark then edit the incident so as to put some of Jesus' words in a different order, since Mark wrote for gentiles and Matthew for Jews, with their greater interest in Mosaic Law and Jewish custom.

no editing for effect. Jesus spoke many times on every subject, several times in same towns obviously, preaching for three years. these are just different events recorded, not editing for effect.

The issue at hand of divorce would not inherently differ for Jews or gentiles because the rule presented would be the same, the ideal of one mate for life and clarification that divorce though allowed by Moses, and allowed as a norm by pagans, did not in fact change the fact that adultery was involved, so you would not be totally pure, rather it was a concession and better than hopping from partner to partner in a series of unstable affairs or worse yet no strings one night stands.

the moral issue would be the same and the social acceptance of divorce and remarriage the same whether Jew or gentile.

and this has absolutely no bearing on the filioque. When details on The Holy Spirit were added to the Creed, if eternal origin procession from The Father was not the understanding of the assembled bishops, received by tradition of interpretation from their predecessors back to The Apostles, then either "Who proceeds from The Father" would have been left out or the filioque added.

And there would have been no uproar in the east at the west starting to use it neither would it have been an issue in the Great Schism, because it was content not merely illicitness of changing the Creed without an Ecumenical Council's okay that was denounced.

Whatever implication you can put on the grammar now, it was not considered to be the case then that it made the filioque okay, and koine Greek or popular semi educated street Greek was their common tongue, it is not your first language. There are ways of handing English words now, which have different implications than mere grammar issues. Some words are technically synonymous but put different spins on the subject.

Some people in Persia played with the filioque notion also, perhaps that is where the west got the idea.

The fact is, that The Father is characterized by begetting and being without origin, The Son by being begotten (but not by begetting) and being originate in The Father, The Holy Spirit by proceeding from The Father and originating in Him, but not by spirating or begetting anyone else.

If you ascribe begetting or spirating to The Son, as the filioque does, then you apply to Him something(s) that is not applied to The Holy Spirit, Who is thereby lessened, or you open the door to The Holy Spirit begetting or spirating others, and here comes a pantheon of generation of divine beings, comparable to ancient paganism and later gnosticism St. Photios makes these points and others. The filioque understood as double origin is a barrel of worms. It either detracts from The Holy Spirit or allows for more Persons in the godhead currently or future.

THE FIRST TO POSIT THE FILIOQUE WERE THE EUNOMIAN HERETICS, a kind of extreme arianism.

The idea that this double procession supports the divinity of Christ is silly, if you are already convinced Christ is not fully divine, i.e., if you are an arian, then unless you somehow are convinced of the unquestionable divinity of The Holy Spirit, it will not have this effect, rather, it might result in the heretic deciding that The Holy Spirit can't be fully divine, if He comes from both Father and Son, and the latter is not fully divine. Maybe more divine than The Son but not as divine as The Father. The whole filioque thing taken to its logical conclusions is a mess.

Yes, the Hillel/Shammai dispute over what can constitute divorce is a good case in point, more obvious than the account of settling legal disputes quickly, which could have been stated more than once, as you note. I should have chosen the example of Jesus’ baptism, as Mark and Luke agree 100% on the words of the Father, whereas Matthew records him as addressing the crowd, or John the Baptist in particular (“This is my Son”), rather than Jesus (“You are my Son”). Donald Hagner, in his Word Biblical Commentary (Matthew 1-13, Volume 33A (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1993)) comments:

“…The message conveyed by the divine voice is…‘this is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.’ While Mark and Luke have the sentence as a direct statement to Jesus – ‘You are my son [sic]’ – Matthew has it in the third person (cf. John 1:34), thereby objectifying it and making it more suitable as catechetical material for the church. With this alteration, however, Matthew departs from the wording of the OT passage being cited, Ps 2:7…” (p 58).

I can’t find the source presently, but I’d read that historical accounts – and the Gospels are also history – were not written with as much specificity as we would prefer today. It’s not that facts were embellished, so much as specifics weren’t important. Moreover, IIRC, it was not unusual to quote someone else’s words differently for a particular rhetorical effect on the part of the writer.

In any case, this in no way diminishes the authority of Scripture, in my mind. I fully believe the Holy Spirit attended each writer.

You wrote, If you ascribe begetting or spirating to The Son, as the filioque does, then you apply to Him something(s) that is not applied to The Holy Spirit, Who is thereby lessened, or you open the door to The Holy Spirit begetting or spirating others…

Once again, you must engage specifically with my argument. My position is simply that John 15:26 does not indicate any sort of eternal ‘spirating’ or ‘begetting’ at all, as Scripture is totally silent on the matter of the Spirit’s eternal origin. Consequently, the filioque merely means both the Father and the Son ‘send’ the Spirit in terms of mission to the Church.

wording differences at baptism so what? these are equivalent statements and for all you know, the voice might have spoken more than once, once to Jesus and again to the multitude present or to John the Baptist.

And this has no relevance to John's Gospel about things said to the Apostles on that last evening, which would have been seared into their minds.

You wrote: wording differences at baptism so what? these are equivalent statements and for all you know, the voice might have spoken more than once, once to Jesus and again to the multitude present or to John the Baptist.

“This is my Son” and “You are my Son” are not “equivalent statements.”

If the heavenly voice spoke twice then it would seem that all the Synoptic writers were remiss in only recording it once, as, certainly, words from the Father are rare and very significant!

Christine, I have read both liberal and antiliberal theologians, I am aware of the positions they write from, and mine is emphatically antiliberal. But I stand by my position at 3.41am about the divorce dialogue with the Pharisees in Mark 10 and Matthew 19. Please take the trouble to engage with the texts themselves in detail before jumping in with your hobnail boots and assuming that you know better than people who can read the Greek and have clearly studied it in depth. By the way, I did not say a word about the Filioque in that post.

Craig, you clearly have studied the Bible texts relating to the origin of the Holy spirit in greater depth than Christine, but even after all that you can't prove the Filioque from the Bible. Here's a question for you: Suppose the Filioque were definitely false. What difference would that make to the actual lives of Christians?

Christine, you have put up a good argument but you can't decisively disprove the Filioque from the Bible. Here's a question for you: Suppose the Filioque were definitely true. What difference would that make to the actual lives of Christians?

My intent was never to 'prove' the filioque so much as it was to correct Christine's assertion that John 15:26 'proves' some sort of ontological 'procession,' by showing it faulty based on grammatical and contextual grounds. I've actually stated above that I think the Spirit may actually have emanated from the Father, even though it cannot be 'proven' (or disproven) from Scripture.

My overriding concern is that the position of the EO on this matter is needlessly schismatic.

"“This is my Son” and “You are my Son” are not “equivalent statements.”"

yes because the have the same information content, that Jesus is God's Son. Further you have no way of establishing that both statements weren't made, one to Jesus and one more audibly to everyone else.

The context does establish that eternal procession, origin, is at issue, because otherwise it is needlessly redundant and having already said that Someone is being sent then there is description of the Someone.

As for effect of filioque if true or not true on anyone's faith or life I can't answer that, but I suggest you read that link to St. Photios Mystagogy of The Holy Spirit as to the implications of double precession.

""My overriding concern is that the position of the EO on this matter is needlessly schismatic."

I agree, Craig. So is Rome's."

I like that answer, Craig, but we are not schismatic we are the original, and Rome is schismatic.

While Rome may weasle and say filioque is not about double origin THEY ARE LYING BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE EARLY PRESENTATION WAS ABOUT,

why it was mistakenly viewed as proving the divinity of Christ as opposed to arianism, because if Christ is co origin with The Father of The Holy Spirit then He has to be divine. (actually you could argue from that if you insist on rejecting Jesus' divinity that The Holy Spirit is therefore not divine either or even just an energy an action or force as Jehovah's Witnesses do.)

St. Photios writes as one addressing exactly this interpretation of the filioque, and while answering at least one objection to his objections, does not indicate anyone protested they didn't mean double origin.

It is Rome beginning to see the error while pretending it was never there that is why you hear modern romanists say the filioque is not about double origin. THEY LIE, AS USUAL.

It's not, Christine. Brush up on your formal logic. The Holy Spirit follows faith, and IF faith goes with the apostolic succession then the Holy Spirit will be seen to go with that too; but if faith does not go with the apostolic succession then faith will not go with the apostolic succession.

Jesus says The Holy Spirit will operate in the world to convict of sin, but apparently as helper in the Church. Obviously He is operating outside of such parameters as faith.

Apostolic succession is about two things, preservation of the faith, and a charism given by the laying on of hands in a chain back to The Apostles.

Two things can break that chain, heresy, and wrong consecration. Rome focusses on intent and form, being almost in a paranormal operations mode, though not entirely. Orthodoxy retains the epiklesis the invocation of The Holy Spirit to accomplish any sacrament major or minor and flaws in the priest's intention or faith are made up for by The Holy Spirit.

Denial of the literal presence of The Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, formal public denial of this (which Luther didn't do by the way that was brought in by Calvin and Zwingli and infected some Lutheran denominations), would be a heresy enough to break it I would think. Certainly the intent would be lacking and no one of such a mindset would ask God to do what they think couldn't be done.

Which brings me to gnosticism. There is a gnostic presupposition in protestantism which is that of course God is not going to operate through physical means. (relics, blessed objects, and the Eucharist.) The Incarnation itself however, puts the lie to that.

gnosticism rejects the validity of matter, protestantism doesn't do this entirely officially, but there are gnostic compatible elements to its thinking.

Nonetheless, God in His mercy can and does act through such people. I know because He was answering prayers and dealing with my sins and warning me to not go some directions I went anyway, when I was of a protestant mindset.

So you can't really pin it to either or.

your logic is depending on an unexamined premise that The Holy Spirit will do what you expect Him to do.

The Apostolic Succession is an assurance, though sometimes sacramental type miracles have been observed outside of this, outside of consecrated Apostolic Succession, but within the faith itself. However, the original assurance of accuracy of teaching because it came from someone with a lineage back to the Apostles, faded as heresies arose that engulfed large segments of The Church, and even included some patriarchs and bishops and priests. most heresies in fact came from the ranks of clergy.

Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. Gates are defensive, though one could consider the attacking forces coming out of them and trying to extend the boundaries of the city state into empire as being its gates, but while this is taken as an assurance that the Church would never cease existing never be overwhelmed, it sounds to me more like a promise that if we go on the offensive in war against demons we will win.

But Jesus also asked "will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He comes?" and left it an open question.

Theoretically you could have the liturgy and sacraments going on, with not a single clergy man or attender actually having a shred of faith. Just going through the motions.

Because of the Apostolic Succession the sacraments and holy water and so forth would be effective. The liturgy if not changed or not much would still contain all the truth.

someone might walk in and get saved because others were going through the motions, and the person who visited experience the presence of The Holy Spirit to one who was a seeker whose inward mind aka "heart" or nous was willing to cooperate. Or who sensed a relief when they used the Holy Water or venerated a legitimate relic of unusual power.

Donatism held that even one's baptism was illegitimate if the priest was in sin or unbelief. (and that business in Houston had nothing to do with personal emails only public sermons, and turning such over would not be comparable to the demand during early persecutions to turn over copies of Scripture to be destroyed.) everyone had to get rebaptized. no one could have any security if they thought about the potential of the secret thought life of priests to render a baptism of no effect, which meant such a baptised person who wasn't baptized couldn't have a real ordination or if they did but they ordained someone without really meaning it or in sin then that person was invalid and everything they did invalid and so it goes. This kind of chaos is not tolerable.

"your logic is depending on an unexamined premise that The Holy Spirit will do what you expect Him to do."

It is based on the clear promise of God in the New Testament to those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ.

"There is a gnostic presupposition in protestantism which is that of course God is not going to operate through physical means. (relics, blessed objects, and the Eucharist.)"

Among SOME protestants that might be true. But for heaven's sake stop thinking in hierarchies. We are well aware that Communion is a sacrament and we are never going to deny that Jesus said "this is my body; this is my blood". The question is what He meant, and phrases such as "literally true" when it is a literary (whence "literally") account betray only sloppy thinking as to whether He meant "materially true".

Rome and Orthodoxy diverged from 1054, and each has the apostolic succession and 2000 years of interpreting the scriptures – yet they differ over (for instance) the divorce and remarriage scriptures. Never mind which is wrong - the point is that one of them at least must be. Therefore the apostolic succession and a long tradition in reading the Bible do not guarantee correctness. The Holy Spirit follows faith, rather than the apostolic succession: just as I said.

"Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church... it sounds to me more like a promise that if we go on the offensive in war against demons we will win."

He said the gates of HADES, meaning clearly death, meaning that the church will never be annihilated by persecution. That's a far greater promise to have.

"the understanding that He meant materially true is documented in AD 150 by St. Justin Martyr and AD 180 by St. Irenaeus."

They're not necessarily right, are they? His own PHYSICAL flesh and blood BEFORE the Crucifixion?

It doesn't smell or taste like it to me, and I've had permission at a Catholic Mass (in extremis). Moreover the Law of Moses forbade Jews to consume blood (Lev 3:17); is Jesus going to go against the Law given by His Father? Whatever His words meant, it isn't that.

Here we go. All references to not eating blood is in context of eating the meat of dead creatures with blood in it (or rather, since ALL blood can't be gotten out, without pouring out what can be poured out, AND THIS APPLIES TO US CHRISTIANS AS PER NOAH AND THE APOSTOLIC COUNCIL IN ACTS AND AT LEAST TWO CANONS AFTER THAT, "things strangled" things killed without ANY exsanguination incl. poultry whose necks were wrung, not cut off).

While no effort to exsanguinate fish is mentioned, the focus would be on animals that bleed easily. One could argue fish are exsanguinated in process of fileting them, but a fish can be roasted whole and the focus is animals not fish.

This being the case, the issue is DEAD animals. That means blood taken from a LIVING animal as some African tribe in NE Africa does, without harming the animal, is okay.

Because the point is, that the animal IS NOT OURS EXCEPT ON LOAN AND NOT OURS TO ABUSE IT IS NOT ALL FOR US. Blood is poured out to God. Abuse beyond killing with minimal suffering and using the dead remains is implicitly forbidden.

Now, JESUS WAS ALIVE DURING THE FIRST EUCHARIST AT THE LAST SUPPER when He would have miraculously duplicated flesh and blood into the bread and wine, invisibly.

AND HE IS ALIVE AGAIN NOW, so Eucharists with His Body and Blood are not in violation of this rule.

And the early church kept this rule, and did not see a conflict, so regardless of whether Jews would agree with distinction between blood of the dead and blood of the living, this is how they must have seen it, or Justin Martyr would not have said AD 150 that the bread and wine is not ordinary common bread and wine, but after the Eucharistic prayers are said over it, it becomes the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I remind you, that Justin Martyr was of a time that he learned from people who learned from The Apostles themselves, and spoke koine or street lingo Greek as a first language, and interpreted is or represents as being symbolon in the Greek sense

not an empty sign like the letters of an alphabet put together to REFER TO something,

but a reality that EMBODIES something, which is why the Creed is called "the Symbol of The Faith," the embodiment and identity of the Faith.

The context in ALL cases, Noah incl. as I said, FROM WHICH THIS COMES ULTIMATELY, is blood from dead animals.

And no fat has to be somewhat limited, the specifics on this elsewhere in the Law had to do with fat over the kidneys, I double marbeled meat was the issue. The fat over the kidneys was part of what was to be burned in a sacrifice, and forbidden therefore in general to be eaten.

But this law goes back to Noah, just like circumcision goes back to Abraham.

Christine, the contact for Leviticus 3 is sacrifice, not the Noachide covenant. The fact that fat is mentioned in Leviticus but not to Noah shows that these passages, while containing some overlap, are not to be taken together. What part of "It shall be a statute for all generations forever in all your dwellings, that you do not eat fat or blood" do you not understand?

What part of all this is in context of DEAD animals wherever it appears, not just Leviticus but elsewhere in Torah given to Moses AND in Noah AND in Acts Apostolic Council do you not understand?

no one ate anything living except maybe too hungry when fishing and the fish still flopping and small.

CONTEXT IS DEAD ANIMALS not living things, so blood from the living is not at issue.

Besides, Jesus pre Incarnate gave the Law so He can adjust it at will.

Since Justin Martyr's testimony is that The Eucharist was considered the Body AND BLOOD literally of Christ, that it becomes so after the Eucharistic prayers, in the first generation after the last Apostle died, clearly the early Church which forbade eating meat with blood in it "things strangled," again, something dead, something strangled, did not see a conflict.

My question is: while busy trying to do all this explaining, is your life surrendered to this wonderful Lord in obedience to what He has said? A life lived loving Him first and my neighbor as myself does all the explaining Jesus wants from us and what others can see is real.

incl. the Kurds in your prayers, Kobane part of Rojava one kind of socio economic experiment, the Iraqi segment is another kind, both staunchly secularist and safe places for Christians, both under islamic state fire.

there are also some Christian militias forming against Islamic State aka ISIS aka ISIL attacks in the Middle East, and against Boko Haram in Africa, pray for their success. In a photo of one Middle Eastern Christian Militia some women are involved also. 35% of the Kurdish combat forces in Iraq and Syria are women.

Three cups of blood. One taken from an animal that had its throat cut. The second taken from an animal that was alive at the time but since died after being hit by a car. The third taken from an animal that is still alive. But you've forgotten which is which. And you are a Jew bound by Leviticus 3:17 which states only that ""It shall be a statute for all generations forever in all your dwellings, that you do not eat fat or blood."

Christine, do you really mean to say that it matters WHICH cup you drink rather than whether you drink?

I'm not a Jew and we are talking about the Eucharist, and the Jews were not operating in locations where tapping a vein for blood from a cow during a drought to drink something was being done, so I doubt anyone ever thought about it. If presented with this practice, they would probably do the typical Jewish (and Eastern Orthodox) thing, you got four people you got five opinions.

In the situation you describe, Jew or Christian, not knowing which is which the solution is don't drink.

Since the issue is how the animal died (and normally you don't eat live animals) the blood from the animal alive when it was taken but became road kill sometime later, would probably be okay.

This is not really an issue outside of the vampire community which I haven't tagged bases with in a long time. The average Christian not Orthodox doesn't know about the blood prohibition and wouldn't think about the issue. There is as someone put it a small despised Christian contingent in the vampire community. Perhaps one gal I met online who is Orthodox would think about it, she couldn't get through Holy Week without meat preferably raw I assume. I used to struggle through it anyway, but over time actually was able to keep the major fasts incl. Lent, though keeping to some convenient ancient canons forbidding fasting on Sundays and monastic custom no fasting on Saturdays, I don't keep the weekends of Lent.

On Holy Saturday I can feel the bad feeling coming on no trace of animal product at all for six days not just five.

aLways been a loner, never a part of a community but got a good education explaining some oddities about myself online starting about AD 2000 or 2002. Of course most of these people, whether sanguinarians, blood drinkers, or psy vamps, energy feeders, are not Christian, so I got in a lot of theological disputes. the vampires are more tolerant than the pagans and witches, I don't recall being kicked off a vampire egroup maybe one, mostly I drifted away, but I was eventually kicked off almost all pagan and witch egroups I was on, originally planning to lurk and ask the occasional leading question, but couldn't let some anti Christian garbage especially the ignorant type go unanswered.

What part of all references are in context of DEAD sources of blood do you not understand?

What part of Eucharist as Body and Blood of Christ is not prohibited by this or by the primal rule tied to letting us eat meat at all, or the Apostles' immediate successors wouldn't have been teaching this, and they were teaching it is the real Body and Blood of Christ, or writers in the mid second century wouldn't teach it,

do you not understand?

not consuming fat is first referenced in Torah in connection with the fat over the kidneys which is reserved to God or thrown out. So this must be read as reference to this.

no blood.....fish are excluded from this rule since they are mostly dead before being cut up and eaten. locusts ditto. (locusts were allowed.) Sap is blood of plants and serves the same function and is their "life" like the blood is the life of the animal, so "blood" is not an absolute, it is limited to the context of mammals and birds. (reptiles weren't allowed.)

So since CONTEXT excludes the rule about blood from applying to anything but animals and birds (and reptiles now that we can eat them), CONTEXT is indeed relevant, and you can note the fact that CONTEXT is about animals killed for food, so CONTEXT presupposes dead animal,

AND WHAT DOES THE LAW SHOW US? that animals are only PARTLY for our use, not ABSOLUTELY. Also the sanctity of blood is given as the reason, blood is given to make atonement for sin.

Well, at that last point....Jesus' Blood has been given to make atonement for our sins, and eating that Blood in a sacred context is not going to be treating it as common, while most eating done for food purpose or pleasure, is not treating blood as sacred.

Again, if Justin Martyr having learned from Christians found that The Eucharist is considered to have become the real Body and Blood of Christ, and wrote this AD 150, and St. John died a little after AD 100, and St. Irenaeus reported this and was disciple of a disciple of St. John the Apostle,

then clearly the earliest church taught this and saw no conflict, yet dictated that meat without any exsanguination was not acceptable. So clearly they did not see a conflict.

that said, a eucharist "consecrated" by a protestant or other, without apostolic succession of ordination and consecration and without belief in the Real Presence and without intent to call Jesus into the bread and wine, is probably just bread and wine.

The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st Century looks like a good read on amazon.com listening to an interview with the authors http://fringeradionetwork.com/the-bruce-collins-show-102114-guests-the-collins-brothers/

"a eucharist "consecrated" by a protestant or other, without apostolic succession of ordination and consecration and without belief in the Real Presence and without intent to call Jesus into the bread and wine, is probably just bread and wine."

And you are probably talking nonsense!

Ordination? Peter and John wrote in the New Testament that all Christians are priests.

Apostolic succession? Not in my Bible.

"This is my body, this is my blood" - is in my Bible and we never deny it, we just differ on what it means.

"do you not understand?"

Probably not; you write plenty here that I do not understand. Let others judge the reason...

Christine sits in a lofty place in her mind as holier than thou in all this, as you so rightly call it, nonsense. ("I have to teach you people..")

She actually has the audacity (God open her eyes) to preach to us but I do not see the Bible (the whole counsel of God just the whole counsel of her churches writings and rituals and her own add-on interpretations) upheld, it is just her take on the Bible instead. And the Holy Spirit does not bear witness that she is actually in the faith once delivered to the saints. Talk is cheap. It must be, because she affords so much of it.

She is rogue and fringe in belief and practice by things I gather from what she speaks of herself. She has religion and gobs and gobs of that (and has my pity because she has no freedom in Christ).

All she really needs is Jesus so the Holy Spirit can humble her and teach her rightly, and then and only then, she will actually make sense and edify hearers.

Many here just have to bypass her posts because they really distract from what are the real topics. She wears out her welcome here when she should just stay home at her own blog and preach to her hearts content there but we are not so fortunate as that......

Jesus said BOTH. That His words were flesh and blood AND He performed the first Eucharist and said that those who do the will of The Father in Heaven are the ones who inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, you can partake of Him both ways, and in theory you can't partake of His literal Flesh and Blood unless partaking of and acting on His words first.

This isn't Roman Catholic, this is reported from the mid 100s AD this is original church doctrine before Rome went into schism and kept some truth and added some error.

Ken Wilber is a major New Age guru. His disciples have reportedly included such as Al Gore. Note it is spelled "WILBER" and not WILBUR. Almost everything you hear of as "integrative" stems from his writing and influence, including "integrative medicine."

The movie you refer to is a documentary made about the New Age Movement in the early 1980s. It was very well done. You can now find and download it from Youtube.

About Me

As an active Michigan lawyer, I practice my profession primarily in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties of Michigan, USA (248-253-0333). Sometimes I do work in my old "stomping grounds" of our State Capitol, Lansing, Michigan on administrative, state law related matters, as well. I've enjoyed active and stimulating careers in government, politics, law and as a published and translated author. In the past, I have worked for the Michigan House of Representatives, the Michigan State Senate, and the City of Highland Park, Michigan. I'm the author of the first major critical book about the New Age Movement, THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF THE RAINBOW: The New Age Movement and our Coming Age of Barbarism (1983); A PLANNED DECEPTION: The Staging of a New Age Messiah (1986). Currently, I'm completing a volume about Javier Solana, the Barcelona Process, Israel and the European Union. Email me cumbey@gmail.com.